Library Boy

Legal research news from an Ottawa law librarian

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Statistics Canada Report on Criminal Victimization in the Territories, 2014

Statistics Canada has released numbers on Criminal victimization in the territories, 2014 that shows that the number of residents of Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut who report having been the victims of crime is much higher than for residents of Canada's provinces.

Among the highlights:

•More than one-quarter of residents of the territories (28%) reported being the victim of at least one crime in 2014. This was down from the proportion reported in 2009 (34%), but remains higher than the figure reported in the provinces (18%).
•Both violent victimization (-29%) and household victimization (-34%) decreased from 2009. However, the rate of theft of personal property remained stable.
•Nunavut recorded the highest rates of both violent victimization (241E per 1,000 population) and household victimization (313 per 1,000 population) among the territories. On the other hand, this territory also reported the lowest rate of theft of personal property (68E per 1,000 population).
•Overall, the proportion of people who reported being the victim of at least one crime was higher in communities with a population of 2,000 or more (32%) than in smaller communities (19%).
•Approximately one-third of residents of the territories (34%) reported having been the victim of abuse by an adult at least once before the age of 15. This proportion was higher among those aged 45 to 64 years (45%) than those aged 15 to 34 years (26%).
•Among those with a spouse or common-law partner (current or ex), 12% reported at least one spousal violence incident in the preceding five years, similar to the proportion reported in 2009. Three-quarters (75%) of victims were Aboriginal.
•Consistent with data in the provinces, Aboriginal identity was not associated with an increased risk of violent victimization when other risk factors were taken into account.
•Approximately one-half (49%) of victims of spousal violence reported sustaining injuries due to the violence. This proportion was higher than the proportion observed in the provinces (31%).
•Almost half (49%) of cases of spousal violence were reported to the police, and so were 36% of victimization incidents other than spousal violence.
•About one-third (34%) of females in the territories reported feeling very safe walking alone at night, compared with almost two-thirds (62%) of males.
•Over one-third of territorial residents (36%) reported having a great deal of confidence in the police. Aboriginal residents were less likely to report having a great deal of confidence in the police compared to non-Aboriginal residents (30% compared with 43%, respectively).

Library of Parliament Article on Marijuana Regulation in Canada

"Marijuana, otherwise known as cannabis, has been legally prohibited in Canada since 1923. The 2002 report of the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs noted that there was little debate surrounding this addition to the criminal law at the time; as such, the precise motivation for doing so remains unclear."

"Today, the prohibition of cannabis is found in the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), which makes it an offence to possess, traffic, import and export, or produce cannabis."

"Penalties upon conviction for these offences range from a fine for the least serious possession offences to potential life imprisonment for the most serious trafficking offences. Sentences are more severe if the amount of cannabis involved is large."

"Mandatory minimum sentences apply if certain factors are present, such as the threat or use of violence or a weapon in the commission of the offence. A mandatory sentence need not be applied if an offender successfully completes a drug treatment program."

The article also looks at how marijuana is regulated in other jurisdictions such as the states of Washington and Colorado, Uruguay, Portugal and the Netherlands.

A Guide to Fee-Based U. S. Legal Research Databases: "This guide is designed primarily for non-U.S. legal researchers. It describes several providers of legal research databases, focusing on fee-based sources, both high-cost and low-cost (...) Among commercial providers, WestlawNext, Lexis Advance, and Bloomberg Law (including Bloomberg BNA and PACER) are the largest and most sophisticated in terms of search features in searching and other features), but often the most expensive. Fastcase, Casemaker, and VersusLaw are considered to be low-cost databases. Specifically, Casemaker and Fastcase are free to state bar members in many states. Additionally, Bloomberg BNA (included in Bloomberg Law), CCH IntelliConnect, HeinOnline, and Thomson Reuters Checkpoint provide expensive, sophisticated, and specialized products for practitioners in areas such as labor law, environmental law, securities, taxation, and immigration law. Although they have not been introduced in this article, other important fee-based databases are PACER (also included in Bloomberg Law), CourtLink (by Lexis), Courthouse News Service, Law360 (also included in Lexis), and CourtExpress (by Westlaw) for court docket and case information service, Lexis Securities Mosaic for securities, LexisNexis Accurint for public records, AILA Link for immigration law, vLex and Foreign Law Guide for foreign laws, WorldTradeLaw.net for international trade law, and Proquest Congressional for legislative history research, etc."

International Trademark Law – The Madrid System: "Registration of trademarks in multiple jurisdictions around the world is governed by two independent treaties—the Madrid Agreement (the Agreement) and the Madrid Protocol (the Protocol). Despite its name, the Protocol is a separate treaty and not a “protocol” to the Agreement. Together, the Agreement and the Protocol are known as the Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks (the Madrid System). States party to the Agreement and/or the Protocol and organizations party to the Protocol are referred to collectively as Contracting Parties. Together, they constitute the Madrid Union, which is a Special Union under Article 19 of the Paris Convention. The Madrid System is a centrally administered system (by the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO) for obtaining a bundle of trademark registrations in separate jurisdictions, creating in effect a basis for an "international registration" of marks. This guide is intended to highlight the resources and important issues encountered in using the Madrid System for the international registration of marks."

Monday, April 25, 2016

April 2016 Issue of Governance and Recordkeeping Around the World

The Governance and Recordkeeping Around the World newsletter, published by Library and Archives Canada (LAC), highlights issues pertaining to government and recordkeeping practices in the public and private sectors around the world.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Invitation to Recordkeeping Day – May 2, 2016

Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) are organizing Recordkeeping Day on May 2, 2016 for members of the Government of Canada information management community and members of the federal library community.

Morning plenaries will be held at the Maison de la culture de Gatineau,
at 855 De la Gappe Boulevard. The afternoon sessions will
be held at LAC’s Conference Centre, located on the
ground floor of 550 De la Cité Boulevard. Both are in Gatineau.

Survey of US Law School Faculty: Evaluation of the Law Library

"The 115-page study presents detailed data on law faculty evaluations of a myriad of law library information resources and services, including but not limited to information services such as West, LexisNexis, Bloomberg, FindLaw, and Google Scholar; services such as group study rooms, database training and other infoliteracy services, inter-library loan, range and quality of law journals and legal databases, course reserves, law library information technology and much more."

"In addition, the report presents faculty judgments on the idea of hiring more librarians, on the future of the library budget and on the overall efficiency of the law school library compared to other departments and units of the law school."

124 law school faculty from 38 law schools in the United States took part.

"The
SLA Professional Competencies Task Force envisions that this document
will be used by various audiences in different ways. Among those
audiences are the following:

Members of the Special Libraries Association (SLA) and other
librarians and information professionals, as a resource for articulating
their own skills and competencies to employers and as a checklist for
professional development;

Employers, as a source for understanding what librarians and
information professionals bring to an organization and how they can
contribute to organizational performance;

Students and prospective students, as a guide to the profession they
are entering and a framework for choosing courses, programs, and
careers; and

Library and information science educators, as a framework for developing their curricula."

"The competencies provide a broad-picture view of our body of knowledge. While we all won’t possess every skill mentioned in the document, it is necessary for us to understand the scope of what information professionals do and how our own work is connected to other types of work in the information sphere. At the same time, the competencies can help us describe the nature and importance of our work to those who want to understand the contributions of information professionals."

"The competencies are ideal to serve as a professional development road map for information professionals. Hone your expertise based on the skills outlined in the document. Are you seeking a promotion, or interested in refocusing your career? Reviewing the competencies is a good place to start exploring what you need to know. Use them to evaluate gaps in your training and education, and then seek out opportunities to deepen your knowledge in those areas."

"Link rot happens when a hyperlink on a web page or within a document points to a website or online resource that has changed or is no longer available. It is a serious problem affecting as much as 70 percent of all scholarly articles in law, medicine, science, and technology, impeding the ability to follow and evaluate the digital scholarly record. Building on solutions and approaches developed in the field of legal scholarship, this project will add to the Perma library coalition and seek to mitigate link rot in other fields."

Sunday, April 17, 2016

Canadian Association of Law Libraries Funding to Attend Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute 2016

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is inviting nominations for a candidate to attend the upcoming Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute, which will be held December 3 – 9, 2016 at Jasper Park Lodge in Jasper National Park.

The Institute is an annual library leadership training program.

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is offering to sponsor
one CALL member as a nominee to the Institute and is prepared to fund
the registration fee and up to $1,000 in travel costs to that person if
he or she is selected by the Institute.

CALL members will need to complete both a nomination package to the CALL Scholarships and Awards Committee and the ‘Nominee’s Application Package’ for the Institute.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Law Library of Congress Tackles Link Rot

It explains how the Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. adopted Perma.cc, a tool developed at Harvard to help law journals and courts deal with link rot.

Link rot
refers to broken URLs or to URLs that direct to the original site but
whose corresponding document has been
removed or relocated without any information about where to find it.

The Library had discovered many instances of link rot in its foreign, comparative and international law reports.

Using Perma.cc, authors can archive web documents and create a permalink to them:

"(...) Perma.cc was officially implemented by the Law Library on October 1,
2015. This means that hyperlinked footnote references in new Global
Legal Research Center reports—such as the Center’s recent reports on foreign fighters, human trafficking or national parliaments—now
contain links to archived versions of referenced Web pages, allowing
readers permanent access to key legal materials, regardless of what
happens to the original Web address."

Earlier Library Boy posts about link rot include:

Most Recent Issue of Law Library Journal (November 5, 2010): "Among the articles that attracted my attention: ... Breaking Down Link Rot: The Chesapeake Project Legal Information Archives Examination of URL Stability:
'Ms. Rhodes explores URL stability, measured by the prevalence of link
rot over a three-year period, among the original URLs for law- and
policy-related materials published to the web and archived though the
Chesapeake Project, a collaborative digital preservation initiative
under way in the law library community. The results demonstrate a
significant increase in link rot over time in materials originally
published to seemingly stable organization, government, and state web
sites'."

Fifth Annual Link Rot Report of the Chesapeake Digital Preservation Group
(May 3, 2012): "The Chesapeake Digital Preservation Group has just
published its 5th annual study of link rot among the original URLs for
online law- and policy-related materials it has been archiving since
2007 (...) In 2012, 218 out of 579 URLs in the sample no longer provide
access to
the content that was originally selected, captured, and archived by the
Chesapeake Group. In other words, link rot has increased to 37.7 percent
within five years."

CBC Radio Interview about Link Rot in Court Decisions
(October 28, 2013): "The most recent episode of the CBC Radio show
Spark includes an interview with Harvard Law School researcher Kendra
Albert who co-authored an article about link rot in US Supreme Court
decisions (...) In the case of the URLs in US Supreme Court decisions,
the authors found a link rot rate of 50%.
The Spark researchers checked URLs in Supreme Court of Canada decisions
and found many broken links to texts from the Canadian Association of
Journalists, the Law Society of Alberta and the Uniform Law Conference
of Canada, among others."

Georgetown University Symposium Searches for Solutions for Link Rot
(March 16, 2015): "Retired Supreme Court of the United States librarian
Judith Gaskell published an article today on Slaw.ca called Link Rot: the Problem Is Getting Bigger, but Solutions Are Being Developed.
The article describes a symposium in the fall of 2014 at Georgetown
University that examined emerging solutions to the problem of link
rot.."

Profile Article About Inventor of Anti-Link Rot Perma.cc Web Tool (September 27, 2015): "The ABA Journal last week published a profile of "Legal Rebel" Jonathan Zittrain, the director of the Harvard Law Library. The Law School invented the tool Perma.cc that helps organizations create an archive of permanent links for web citations. It acts as a tool to deal with the growing menace of link rot."

"The rule against perpetuities (RAP) was developed by English courts in the 17th century as a way to prevent landowners from using future and contingent interests to tie up property for generation after generation. RAP seeks to control the creation of future, contingent interests in property which may vest outside of the specified perpetuity period. The perpetuity period is measured with reference to any life or lives in being that are in existence at the creation of the interest, plus 21 years. If, at the date that the disposition takes effect, it is not certain that the contingent interest will vest within the perpetuity period, then the interest will be considered void at the outset. RAP was received law from England and became part of the law of Alberta."

"Over the centuries the courts expanded RAP with the result that it now applies to virtually all future or contingent interests in property, regardless of whether the interest is real, personal, legal or equitable. RAP and its expansion have resulted in a complex and virtually incomprehensible body of law that is often misapplied and misunderstood (...)"

"Does perpetuities law serve any valid legal or social purpose in today’s society? It seems to be well accepted that the historical purpose of preventing wealthy landowners from creating successive family estates is not relevant in Canada. However, many view the modern purpose of perpetuities law as creating a balance between past and present, so that a settlor or testator may dictate the disposition of his or her property, but may not control it so far into the future that the beneficiaries cannot appropriately respond to changed times and circumstances. Similarly, restricting how far into the future a settlor or testator can control his or her property may benefit society by ensuring that property is used to meet contemporary needs, rather than outdated ones (...)"

"Choosing to retain perpetuities law does not necessarily mean that the Perpetuities Act should continue to govern in its current form. Three potential reform models are presented and discussed:

Perpetuities law should allow a choice between RAP’s perpetuity period calculated by reference to lives in being and a fixed perpetuity period for vesting, but should retain the wait and see principle.

RAP should be codified, the concept of lives in being should be eliminated, a fixed perpetuity period for vesting should be implemented, and the wait and see principle should be retained.

RAP, lives in being, vesting and the wait and see principle should be completely replaced with a legislated, fixed duration period for trusts."

The report discusses the situation in Alberta as well as the practices adopted in Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Saskatchewan, England and New Zealand.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

Supreme Court of Canada Hearings Calendar for April 2016

To find out more about any particular case,
the Court's website has a section that allows users to find docket
information, case summaries as well as factums from the parties. All you
need to do is click on a case name.

Law Commission of England Consultation on Updating the Land Registration Act 2002

"An effective land registration law is essential for everyone who owns
land, whether the land is a home, a business or an investment. Land
registration also has wider importance for business and the economy; a
recent report from the World Bank suggests that a 'well-designed land
administration system … makes it possible for the property market to
exist and to operate' (...)"

"Our project is designed to update the Land Registration Act 2002, the
Act that governs registered land, in light of the experience of its
operation since it came into force in October 2003. Our project is not
designed to fundamentally reformulate the Act, but to improve specific
aspects of its operation within the existing legal framework."

"Our scoping work revealed a range of often highly technical issues
that have important implications for landowners, conveyancers, lenders
and all those with an interest in the property market. Dealings and
disputes that engage the land registration regime can be complex and
require expert advice. Uncertainty in the regime makes advising clients
difficult, incentivises litigation, and increases costs for landowners.
Additionally, the landscape within which land registration operates has
changed considerably since the Act came into force. We have seen an
increase of incidents of fraud relating to registered land, the legal
consequences of which have been difficult to resolve, while technology
has not developed in the way that was predicted at the time the
legislation was drafted.
Our consultation paper considers a wide range of issues, including:

the interests that can be registered

how interests are protected on the register

the effect of registration

the extent of the guarantee of title that registration provides

the development of electronic conveyancing."

Following an analysis
of the responses to the consultation, the Commission will publish a report and
draft a Bill for the British Parliament in late 2017.

Canadian Bar Association Legal Futures Round-Up: April 11, 2016

CBA National, the magazine of the Canadian Bar Association, publishes a regular feature entitled Legal Futures round-up that
tracks "noteworthy developments, opinions and news in the legal futures
space as a means of furthering discussion about our changing legal
marketplace."

The most recent instalment
includes items on, among other things, the billable hour, a hackathon aimed at improving courtroom technology, an interview with Richard and Daniel Susskind, co-authors of a new book The Future of the Professions: How Technology Will Transform the Work of Human Experts, virtual legal assistants, and how big data can improve legal services.

Alberta Law Reform Institute Report on Reviewable Transactions

The Alberta Law Reform Institute (ALRI) has published a report on Reviewable Transactions that proposes major updates to the province's laws on fraudulent preference and conveyances:

"The law of fraudulent conveyances and fraudulent preferences is part of the broader commercial law of creditors’ remedies. Provincial fraudulent conveyances and fraudulent preferences law supports the civil enforcement regime by offering a remedy to creditors whose rights are subverted as a result of transactions that remove property of their debtors from the reach of judgment enforcement law. Corresponding provisions in the federal Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act allow a trustee in bankruptcy to recover property lost to creditors who are entitled to share in a distribution under the rules of that Act once bankruptcy proceedings are invoked. While those provisions are designed to serve the same purpose as that served by provincial law, the conditions under which a transaction may be set aside under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act differ from those that apply under provincial law. A trustee may rely on either regime but, outside of bankruptcy, creditors are restricted to provincial law. "

"Alberta law in this area, like the law in other Canadian common law provinces and territories, is seriously dated, lacks a clear policy foundation and produces anomalous and uncertain results. The widely acknowledged need for reform prompted the Uniform Law Conference of Canada [ULCC] to undertake a comprehensive project culminating in 2012 with its approval of the Uniform Reviewable Transactions Act [URTA], recommended by the Conference for adoption across the country. The Act is accompanied by a detailed commentary explaining the meaning and operation of its provisions. The central recommendation of this report is that the URTA be enacted in Alberta, with such minor revisions as may be appropriate to interface with other legislation and generally meet local legal requirements. The ancillary recommendations deal with those revisions. "

According to the ALRI, among the changes the adoption of URTA would bring are the following:

Balancing creditors’ rights to
recover what they are owed against a transferee’s right to be free from
unsuspected claims to property or value received from a person who has
creditors;

Focusing on the effect of a transaction (did it impede or
defeat creditors’ rights of recovery?) rather than the intention of its
participants;

Considering whether the transferee was in a position to
recognise that the transaction was vulnerable because its terms were too
good to be true or the transferee knew of and facilitated the debtor’s
intention to obstruct creditors.

Library of Parliament Analysis of Sentencing and the Administration of Sentences Trends

"Sentencing tools were much in the spotlight as the Canadian Government continued to promote law-and-order legislation during the 41st Parliament."

"New mandatory minimum sentences were among reforms to the sentencing regime introduced during the past four years."

"Other reforms included the enhancement of victim rights, the creation of specific offences and risk management measures, as well as changes to rules governing record suspensions. This HillNote reviews the highlights of these changes."

"During the span of the 41st Parliament, both the police-reported crime rate, which measures volume of crime, and the Crime Severity Index, which measures the seriousness of crime, continued their long-term downward trends."

A number of Canadian police forces have completed or are contemplating pilot projects on the matter.

And Calgary plans to equip its front-line uniformed police officers with the cameras in 2017 as a matter of policy.

The article discusses why some police forces think the cameras will enhance accountability and reduce false complaints of police misconduct as well as the many concerns of sceptics such as civil libertarians:

"[Laura] Berger, of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, said it's important to test assumptions in this emerging area of technology and policing."

" 'I think there is an assumption that if people are being filmed, they
will not unnecessarily use violence, that they'll be more conscious and
more thoughtful about the ways that they react because they know that
they're on camera,' she said."

" 'We need to be cautious of the idea that video never lies and that
video evidence will provide a panacea to concerns about police use of
force and accountability'."

Disclaimer

Neither the content nor the views contained in this blog represent the positions of my employer or of any association to which I belong. Any links to a news article, an academic study or another blog post should not be considered to indicate any form of endorsement on my part or on that of my institution. This is a purely personal blog for the purposes of sharing information about library issues and legal research.